Please Explain, page-51

" but it’s important to understand the type of fund you’re buying when you invest in ALF."

I think that is the point, people no longer know what sort of fund ALF is or what JB is trying to achieve. After reading recent commentary I am totally unsure even JB knows what he is trying to achieve , because he clearly fails to articulate the situation in an unambiguous manner.
One minute he talks about how bad the companies stock picking has been and then tries to dismiss poor returns because the strategy doesn't work in a bull market. He argues that in a bull market poor stocks, that they short, go up with the rest of the market. Surely in a bear market the reverse happens to good stocks and they go down with the rest of the market. So the trick is to pick the trend and be on that side of it, not stubbornly sit on the fence and cry that "it's not our fault". It seems like a pretty stupid strategy to try and find the 50 to 60 short stocks and then short them if you have no confidence that they will hold up their end of the bargain.
I would have though this type of fund is a combination of good stock picking, both long and short, and making beta adjustments to suit the overall market stance. JB in his commentary has admitted that the downturn is unlikely to happen this year now, so what happens now another year of poor returns? It seems like they are playing roulette at the casino and half their money is on red and the other half on black and they hope that zero doesn't come up.

It will be interesting to see where to from here. I know JB is convinced that there is a downturn not far away, but there is many a respected commentator that thinks this is not the case.